Part 11 (1/2)
[D] Johnson, 307.
There was then, already, a complexity of opinion on the slavery question that shadowed forth the future alignment of parties. While many were confounded by wavering lights, Lincoln picked his way with sure footed precision through maze and pitfall. His unprejudiced mind wondered at the conduct of the ”Liberty men” that deprecating the annexation of Texas, deliberately promoted its success by indirection. Their application of the proposition ”we are not to do evil that good may come of it” he reduced to plain sophistry, saying that if by their votes they could have prevented the extension of slavery, it would have been good, and not evil, so to have used their votes, even though it involved the casting of them for a slaveholder, and he earnestly asked if the fruit of electing Clay would have been to prevent the extension of slavery, could the act of electing him have been evil?[197] He held that it was a paramount duty of the free States to let the slavery of the other States alone, while it was equally clear that they should never knowingly lend themselves, directly or indirectly, to prevent slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it could no longer exist in the old.[198] Here, is clearly announced the seeming paradox that, though slavery was an evil, there still remained the duty to let it alone in the States where it then existed. This further piles up evidence that his views suffered little change with years.
[197] Tarbell, 2, 293.
[198] _Ibid._, 293-294.
Lincoln boldly partic.i.p.ated in the campaign of 1844; Clay was the political hero of his youth and manhood as Was.h.i.+ngton was of his boyhood. Like many other Whigs, he, too, was enthralled by the magic of the far famed eloquence of the name, that, in the words of the orator who nominated Clay, expressed more enthusiasm, that it had in it more eloquence than the names of Chatham, Burke, Patrick Henry, and, more than any other and all other names together.[199]
[199] Nicolay & Hay, 1, 225.
During the campaign, Lincoln encountered his former employer, John Calhoun, and other old antagonists. It is said that Calhoun came nearer whipping Lincoln in debate than Douglas did.[200] Nothing survives of those speeches. Still, his enthusiasm and skill in the controversies of the campaign awakened a demand for his services throughout the State.
His name as an orator even invaded Indiana. In the closing hours of the contest his voice was heard on the soil that he hastened from some fifteen years before as an adventurer. While speaking at Gentryville, his old friend Nat Grigsby entered the room. Lincoln stopped and crying out ”There's Nat,” scrambled through the crowd to his modest a.s.sociate of former days. After greeting him warmly, he returned to the platform.
When the speech was done, he pa.s.sed the rest of the evening with Nat.
Then Lincoln insisted that they should sleep together; and long into the night, they talked over old times and were once more Abe and Nat.[201]
[200] Lamon, 274.
[201] _Ibid._, 274-5.
The appearance of Clay's August letter stirred the political Abolitionists to fateful activity. They insisted that his antagonism to annexation, not being founded on anti-slavery convictions, was of no account.[202] They polled enough votes to elect pro-slavery Polk.
Mingled with the ribaldry, the din and howl of abandoned politicians over the election of Polk, were the exultant shouts of the sober and respectable men of the Liberty Party. They celebrated in unison the victory they both promoted.
[202] Greeley, 1, 167.
The solemn selection of James K. Polk instead of Henry Clay as President, was a discordant incident that the Whig patriot did not linger over willingly. That a pigmy should sit in the seat of the statesman, that a puppet should stand in the place of the nature-dowered son of American policies,--this opinion made Clay's followers doubt the wisdom of republican government. To them this defeat was more than a partisan grief, it was a national loss. From loyal supporters hurried a grand tribute to their uncrowned champion in his retreat: ”We will remember you, Henry Clay, while the memory of the glorious or the sense of the good remains in us, with a grateful and admiring affection which shall strengthen with our strength and shall not decline with our decline. We will remember you in all our future trials and reverses as him whose name honored defeat and gave it a glory which victory could not have brought. We will remember you when patriotic hope rallies again to successful contest with the agencies of corruption and ruin; for we will never know a triumph which you do not share in life, whose glory does not accrue to you in death.”[203]
[203] Nicolay & Hay, 1, 236.
CHAPTER VIII
LINCOLN OPPOSES THE INCEPTION OF THE MEXICAN WAR IN CONGRESS
It is quite generally believed in Sangamon County that a bargain was entered into between Baker, Lincoln, Logan and Hardin whereby the ”four should 'rotate' in Congress until each had had a term.”[204] There is evidence in the writings of Lincoln that there was some kind of an understanding between Baker, Lincoln and Logan. There is a startling story as to the character of the arrangement. A delegate to the Pekin Convention of 1843 states, that he was asked by Lincoln immediately after the nomination of Hardin, if he would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the next term. On being answered in the affirmative Lincoln told the delegate to prepare the resolution, and he would support it. It created a profound sensation, especially among the friends of Hardin. After angry discussion, the resolution pa.s.sed by a bare majority.[205] This incident ill.u.s.trates the sagacious policy of Lincoln in furthering his restless political ambition. He publicly declined to contest the nomination of Baker in 1844. Pursuant to a widespread expectation, Baker did not stand in the way of Lincoln two years later.
[204] Lamon, 275.
[205] Tarbell, 195-6.
Lincoln kept close to those who moulded public opinion,--the men of the press. Then the personality of an editor was a weighty factor in the decision of political contests. He wrote to an editor and supporter in 1846 that as the paper at Pekin had nominated Hardin for governor and the Alton paper indirectly nominated him for Congress, it would give Hardin a great start, and perhaps use him up, if the Whig papers of the district should nominate Hardin for Congress, and that he wished that the editor would let nothing appear in his paper which might operate against him.[206]
[206] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 82.
To this, he received a reply that this supporter had, in fact, nominated Hardin for governor. The tactful response deserves attention: ”Let me a.s.sure you that if there is anything in my letter indicating an opinion that the nomination for governor, which I supposed to have been made in the Pekin paper, was operating or could operate against me, such was not my meaning. Now that I know that nomination was made by you, I say that it may do me good, while I do not see that it can do me harm. But, while the subject is in agitation, should any of the papers in the district nominate the same man for Congress, that would do me harm; and it was that which I wished to guard against. Let me a.s.sure you that I do not for a moment suppose that what you have done is ill-judged, or that anything that you shall do will be.”[207]
[207] _Ibid._, 83.
”I should be pleased,” he wrote another friend, ”if I could concur with you in the hope that my name would be the only one presented to the convention; but I cannot. Hardin is a man of desperate energy and perseverance, and one that never backs out; and I fear, to think otherwise is to be deceived in the character of our adversary. I would rejoice to be spared the labor of a contest; but 'being in', I shall go it thoroughly, and to the bottom.” He then admonished his friend not to relax any of his vigilance.[208]